The meeting, the final New Jersey hearing, is one of four the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is hosting in New York and New Jersey this week. Spectra Energy wants to build the pipeline, which would begin in an existing Staten Island facility, through parts of Bayonne, Jersey City and offshore Hoboken. The Bayonne meeting was last night.

Jersey City officials are opposed to the pipeline, which Mayor Jerramiah Healy says would be too dangerous to run through densely populated Hudson County. Healy frequently refers to the 2010 pipeline explosion in San Bruno, Calif. that killed eight people as an example of the kind of disaster that could happen here.

Spectra, meanwhile, maintains that its plan will create one of the safest pipelines in North America. It points to a draft report FERC issued earlier this year that says the pipeline would create "only a slight increase in risk to the nearby public."

The meeting is scheduled to begin tonight at 7 p.m. at Ferris High School, 35 Colgate St. School officials say residents can park in the teachers lot underneath the New Jersey Turnpike Extension on Montgomery Street.